If a new SEC filing is any indication, Fox wants to avoid a deal with Comcast no matter the price. As Ars Technica explains, the Fox board prefers their new deal with Disney over Comcast for a few reasons. While Comcast’s mammoth $65 billion deal was a tempting offer from the outside, there is more than the money involved in making the deal happen, and Disney’s $71.3 billion deal just looks better.
Ars Technica points to a recent filing with the SEC regarding the Comcast offer and Disney’s counter, zeroing in on this reasoning for the latter seeming to win in the end:
Disney’s proposal was more favorable than the other acquisition proposals presented to 21CF for the following reasons, among others…
The fact that Disney’s revised proposal represented an approximate 36% premium to Disney’s offer in December and an approximate 9% premium to the June 13 Comcast proposal;
A strategic transaction with Comcast would be subject to a greater degree of regulatory uncertainty, including the possibility of an outright prohibition and a higher risk of divestitures and delay to closing, as compared to a strategic transaction with Disney;
There are other entries you can read in the filing here, but it doesn’t look good for any potential deal from Comcast at this point. Comcast’s “asset mix” is the real difficult aspect of any possible deal, opening up that nightmare scenario for each company. This marks twice that Fox has thrown off the advances of Comcast, but the company could try for a third time if they think it is worth a shot. The opinion of the board doesn’t seem to offer a lot of confidence, though.
(Via SEC / Ars Technica)
